'Only Children' Are Not Socially Awkward

With smaller
families all the rage these days, some parents may worry over the consequences
of having just one child.

New research
suggests that, as teenagers, only children fare no better or worse in social
skills than adolescents
with siblings.

"I don't think
anyone has to be concerned that if you don't have siblings, you won't learn the
social
skills you need to get along with other students in high school," said
study researcher Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, assistant professor of sociology at Ohio
State University's Marion campus.

Bobbitt-Zeher and Ohio
State professor of sociology Douglas Downey are scheduled to present their
research Monday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
in Atlanta.

Popularity contest

Downing found in
past research that, for kindergarteners, having at least one sibling seemed to
benefit how teachers rated the kids’ social skills. Bobbitt-Zeher and Downing
wanted to see whether this benefit persisted into adolescence.

They examined data
of more than 13,000 middle and high school students who each had to list up to
five male friends and five female friends.

Overall, students
were nominated by an average of five other students as a friend. Results showed
no significant differences in popularity
between those who had siblings and those who had none.

“What it suggested
is by the time students are in adolescence, if there was a benefit to having
siblings when you were younger, having time to have other interactions – boy
scouts, sports, youth groups – those things might compensate for not having a
sibling so that by the time they reach adolescence the negative effect was not
there,” Bobbitt-Zeher told LiveScience.

Whether a teen had brothers
or sisters, step- or full siblings, didn’t make any difference in the
results.

The team also
investigated whether parents of only children are somehow different than those
who have larger families and it was these differences that somehow influenced
their kids’ social skills. They accounted for socioeconomic status, parents'
age, race, and whether a teen lives with both biological parents or not. None
of these factors mattered in terms of the results on social skills.

Small families growing

“In industrial
countries [like] the U.S., we’re seeing smaller family sizes, more children are
going to be growing up with no siblings, more children are going to be growing
up in smaller families,” Bobbitt-Zeher said. “We’re wondering what the
consequences are.”

She added, “What
we’re suggesting here is that by having smaller
family sizes we really don’t see that kind of detrimental influences. …
We’re optimistic there are not going to be these dire consequences as some
might have throught.”

In more recent
research, Downing has followed his kindergartener participants from his past
work to check out their social skills in 5th and 8th grades. He found that by
the time they reach 5th grade there is no real difference in social skills
between only children and those with siblings.

Past research has also
suggested that for cognitive skills having no siblings is the same as having
just one sibling. But any more than one sibling and those kids showed poorer
cognitive scores. The general idea is that having more kids in a family dilutes
resources, including time a parent has to help children with homework or to
work with them on certain verbal or math skills.

Before becoming managing editor, Jeanna served as a reporter for Live Science and SPACE.com for about three years. Previously she was an assistant editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Jeanna has an English degree from Salisbury University, a Master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland, and a science journalism degree from New York University.